This 1888 Old Judge Cigarettes N173 cabinet card of William "California" Brown is a very appealing sample from one of the period's most fabled sets. Old Judge issued these cabinet cards of baseball players as premiums to their cigarette brand; a smoker could send 20 coupons and, in exchange, receive a large-format card of his favorite player.

This card presents extremely nicely and shows only minimal wear that is not uncommon for cards of the period: some corner rounding and faint soiling. Centering is very nice, save for some minor diamond cutting which leaves the top left corner just a hair higher than the right, and keeps the card from grading even higher than it already impressively has. Brown's image remains crisp in this stunning high-grade example from the N173 Old Judge set.

SGC has only ever graded 2 total examples of this N173 cabinet, with NONE receiving a higher grade than the NM 7 offered here of California Brown.